


Afterthought

by goodnyte



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 07:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3842395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnyte/pseuds/goodnyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perceptor never thought he felt anything for Brainstorm - that is, until he learns Brainstorm had a crush on someone that wasn't him all along. Somehow, that changes things. Post-MTMTE 38, pre-MTMTE 40.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afterthought

The brig was a dark and miserable place but, at the very least, it was quiet. Perceptor had quickly grown weary of the gossiping hoards in the ship’s decks below; he couldn’t imagine how Brainstorm would feel if he had heard half of what was being said. And even worse than the rumors and the hearsay were the looks; the fact that he was even going down to talk to Brainstorm when he didn’t have to was earning him disdainful glares from some, pitying looks from others.

Brainstorm would have hated it; he wouldn’t have said a damn thing about how it bothered him, but some part of Perceptor was glad that he was spared, down in the calm of the brig.

He didn’t know what he’d expected when he made it to the cell he was looking for. He hadn’t expected his presence to be _welcome_ but perhaps he had thought it would at least be noted. A snippy remark, a _‘come to gloat?’_ meant to put him on edge.

But instead, he found Brainstorm sitting silently in his cell, elbows planted against his knees and his helm in his hands. Everything Perceptor thought he was going to say, every scenario he’d imagined, went out the window because the core assumption in his predictive model was already proven wrong: Brainstorm wasn’t indignant, he wasn’t even remotely glad that his watershed invention had worked. He was defeated, sad and alone.

“Brainstorm?” he asked, the engineer inside of him wanting to take the broken thing in front of him and fix it somehow. The other mech spooked, looking up with wide, startled optics. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Perceptor said, feeling some relief as Brainstorm sighed and relaxed. “Do you mind if I come in?”

That earned a snort—well, that was something. “Do I mind? Not at all. You better be careful though,” he said, pursing his lips—Perceptor was still getting used to seeing him without his faceplate, still surprised by how expressive the other mech was without the mask. “Or have you not got the memo? I’m a danger to society now.”

“Weren’t you always?” Perceptor asked as he keyed himself into the cell, locking the bars again behind him; he was unable to help himself. Brainstorm snorted again, shrugging. “I’m kidding, of course. But I guess you really always were, if this is what you were planning all along—“

“What do you want, Perceptor?” Brainstorm demanded, interrupting him. Perceptor blinked, not realizing until it was too late that acting like things were normal was not, in fact, helping. He had repressed his usual impulse to fret and it had backfired—go figure, Brainstorm didn’t react well to trying to keep things calm by acting calm.

He cleared his throat. “Apologies, again,” he said, seating himself on the far end of the one bench in the cell, collecting his hands in his lap. “In truth, I wanted to congratulate you,” he said, accepting the small measure of satisfaction he felt well up in his spark as Brainstorm’s help whipped around to look at him, optics going wide again. “Your machine is brilliant. Really,” he said, emphasizing in case Brainstorm thought he was teasing again.

The praise made the other mech’s optics go almost comically wide and it took him longer than usual to school his expression back to neutral. “Yeah? Um,” he said, clearly struggling to come up with a witty comeback. “It was my life’s work so,” he said, no doubt imagining it confiscated and locked away—and it was, now that Perceptor had worn out Ultra Magnus’ patience with his tinkering with evidence.

He wanted to know more of the science of it; he wanted to talk at length—for days, if necessary—not only to understand the time machine, but to hear Brainstorm’s take on it, before he had to testify on it. But, he could tell that conversation wouldn’t help this mech he’d found with his helm in his hands; it wouldn’t be fair, to demand that kind of conversation out of him.

“I took a look at it, once we got everyone back to where and when they should be,” he admitted, Brainstorm shrugged in acknowledgment. “You finished it a while ago.”

“Yeah,” Brainstorm said, sighing hard through his vents.

“What made you wait to use it then?”

Brainstorm narrowed his optics, his gaze becoming a scrutinizing glare as before he finally looked down, staring at his hands. For a moment, Perceptor thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then: “Being on the _Lost Light_ ,” he said, digging at a fleck of paint chipping away from the plating on his thigh. “Working in a lab with you again. It made me happy—almost happy enough to forget about it all.”

Perceptor frowned, surprised by the reply. He thought back on all the hours they’d logged in the lab together, trying to remember if those had been happy times or not. He supposed they had gotten into an easy rhythm of sorts, a routine that was as comfortable as it could be frustrating.

_Simpatico_ —Brainstorm had called them. Had he been thinking of Quark, even then? Or had he managed to make himself forget, just long enough to enjoy himself while working with someone else? Perceptor didn’t think he was jealous but he felt—odd, that all of this time he’d been living in the shadow of some other lab partner and had never known it.

“What changed?” he asked, recovering himself with a tilt of his helm. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

Brainstorm shook his helm, apparently not minding much. “Overlord. When Rewind—“ he started to explain, but struggled for the words despite how quickly he’d been willing to speak on it. Something in Perceptor’s spark cringed, uneasy at seeing cocky, verbose, _chatty_ Brainstorm at a loss for words. “Seeing Chromedome, like he was. I couldn’t—I just didn’t—“

“It wasn’t just about you anymore,” Perceptor supplied, unable to help himself.

“Hm,” Brainstorm hummed, his optics dimming. “Something like that.”

“You took on more than you can handle,” Perceptor said, frowning slightly. He couldn’t tell if he was trying to scold or comfort the other mech at this point. “Typical.”

Brainstorm chuckled at that, though it was a mirthless sound. “What can I say? I always like to exceed expectations.”

Perceptor hummed, certainly having to agree with that statement. “Well, you certainly made an impact among the crew. Most of them don’t know whether they should feel scared or impressed,” he said, thinking that was usually the fine line the other mech often walked along.

“What are you feeling about it?” Brainstorm asked.

He failed to see how that mattered. He would have no hand in deciding whether Brainstorm would be excused for his actions. But he looked up and caught the other mech staring at him, the gold of his optics dark and intense like amber approaching its melting point. Somehow, what he felt mattered. At this moment, it mattered a great deal.

There was a long pause, as he considered what he wanted to say. “What I feel most is pity,” he said quickly. Brainstorm recoiled immediately, a surprised hurt twisting his expression. "Not for you,” Perceptor continued before he could be interrupted. “But for Quark.”

Brainstorm's optics narrowed at that, his expression pinching into a frown. Perceptor had to resist smiling. "Why for Quark? I mean, the guy is dead but," he said, his wings slumping miserably and betraying his blasé tone.

Perceptor sighed and slowly, carefully, reached out a hand to place it on the other mech's shoulder; Brainstorm flinched, sitting up straight against the back wall of the cell. "I didn't hear everything," he said quietly, leaning over to look the other mech in the optics. "But I heard enough. In whatever way your relationship was one-sided, he was the one who was missing out. Look what you did for him," he said, moving his hand from Brainstorm's shoulder, down to his wrist to press his hand against the now-broken chain that had linked Brainstorm to the briefcase, the source of this entire mess.

Brainstorm's optics widened at Perceptor's words, their yellow glow going pale as he ducked his helm, seemingly...embarrassed? Ashamed? Perceptor flagged slightly, worried that he might have gone too far. "He had a friend willing to undo history to save him. If he didn't recognize what he had—" Perceptor started to clarify, but stopped abruptly—there was that odd feeling against. The not-jealousy; he refused to call it that. What kind of monster could be jealous of a dead mech?

Brainstorm seemed to pick up on his hesitation though; ducking his helm further against his chest armor. "I don't know," he mumbled, drawing his hand away from Perceptor's and wrapping them around his torso defensively. "I think most people would call that kind of behavior creepy," he said with a sigh. "Stalking your super-dead ex through time. Probably not the best thing to advertise if I'm interested in pursuing a rebound," he said with a derisive snort.

Perceptor frowned, not liking where the conversation had gone. "You weren't listening," he grumbled, withdrawing his hand. Brainstorm looked back at him. "Don't you see? You invented the device of the century to save a mech who hadn't even treated you with the respect you deserved," Perceptor finally said, hating himself for saying it. Who was this helping? Certainly not Brainstorm and he felt like he was digging himself a shallow grave with these feelings. "He took you for granted. And you," he said, struggling for the words. He gathered his hands in his lap and grasped them into conjoined fists, hoping that would help him rein in his temper.

"I what?" Brainstorm demanded.

"You were too good for him," Perceptor said finally, huffing as he put his hands firmly back in his lap.

Brainstorm physically recoiled at that, making Perceptor blink.The jet appeared stunned, as though Perceptor had just slapped him. The wide look to his optics was back again, their pale yellow becoming brighter in a flash, a renewal of vitality that Perceptor was all too relieved to see. But, just as it came, so the brightness became something else—something unhappy, something threatening to spill over.

Brainstorm's optics steamed with light, tears pooling at their corners. Perceptor fidgeted beneath his gaze, wondering what he'd done wrong; he opened his mouth to say something more, to try to make this right, but before he could Brainstorm was moving, was suddenly pressed against him and for a moment, Perceptor thought perhaps he'd snapped—

His optic went wide, his entire frame going stiff as Brainstorm curled in against him and pressed a kiss against his lips, barely-there and gentle. It lasted but a moment before the other mech pulled himself away again, retreating to hold his helm in his hands again. Perceptor blinked but recovered, his processor cycling through a soft reboot as it struggled to understand that reaction.

“Brainstorm—“

“Sorry, I’m sorry, that was dumb,” Brainstorm said before he could finish, shaking his helm while pressing his palms into his forehead, as though trying to relieve a headache.

Perceptor frowned; he would not have any more apologies. He steeled himself, sitting up straight as if taking a long breath before diving underwater, and reached out to place his hands on Brainstorm’s arms—he pulled him out of his retreat, getting him to look up by pulling his arms apart, holding his helm in his hands.

“It wasn’t dumb,” he quickly corrected. “I just don’t know if it… if that was meant for me, or for someone else,” he said quietly, his spark doing somersaults in its casing—he wasn’t sure if he was nauseous or excited. Perhaps both.

Brainstorm’s gaze dropped. “It was meant for you. It was—” he murmured, his optics trying to find the floor, his expression an exaggerate frown. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he admitted, his voice a little breathless as he realized what he’d done, his frown easing some as his optics brightened and drifted back to Perceptor’s face.

Perceptor tilted his helm, not entirely surprised by that confession, but it was reassuring to hear all the same with the new revelations making him reconsider everything he thought he’d knew about his least favorite lab partner. “Okay then,” he said in reply, pulling Brainstorm close again, gathering him up and kissing him again—gentle and careful, but Brainstorm responded in turn, relaxing against him like a held breath being let loose.

They didn’t talk much beyond that, which Perceptor didn’t mind. _Simpatico_ , Brainstorm had called them; sometimes they just didn’t need words.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't quite squeak this out fast enough to beat MTMTE 40 but I haven't read 40 yet so it still counts in my book.


End file.
